Kathy Hamilton
Katharine "Kathy" Hamilton is a former Illinois elected official who previously served as the chairwoman of the Board of Trustees at the College of DuPage, a community college in the Chicago suburbs. She was chosen as chairwoman after the election of three "clean slate" candidates backed by Hamilton in April 2015. Hamilton resigned the position December 12, 2015.
Her term as a trustee of the college was marked with controversy for her, the college and the college’s top administrators.
When the administration came under media scrutiny in 2014 for a number of incidents related to its spending practices, Hamilton made national headlines for trying to make public the details of the college's spending. She opposed a tuition hike; spoke out against the college's attempt to get a $20 million grant from the state; pushed for transparency following the exposure of the college president spending college funds on personal items; and openly criticized the college’s spending and accounting practices. Following these events, she was formally censured by the college's board of trustees.
Following her censure, local and national media outlets published stories supporting Hamilton and chastising the college. The Chicago Tribune criticized the college president's actions and the board's censure of Hamilton. Forbes magazine praised her efforts to require public transparency of the college's finances. The Washington Times gave the college its Golden Hammer Award, which the newspapers uses to spotlight waste, fraud and abuse in government.
Subsequent to the Hamilton's censure, she continued her public efforts to implement fiscal responsibility and was the only member of the board to vote against a taxpayer-funded $762,868 early retirement buyout of the college president’s contract. The buyout also became a widely covered event in the media and invoked negative reactions from the local community and several Illinois state legislators.
College of DuPage Trustee
Kathy Hamilton was elected by voters to the College of DuPage Board of Trustees on April 8, 2013. She received 51,595 votes, with the second-place winner getting 32,433 votes. On the board, she held the position of vice chairman until April 2015.Tuition increase
In February 2014, College of DuPage administrators asked the Board of Trustees to raise tuition by $6 per credit hour. Hamilton and other trustees opposed the increase. In response, administrators lowered their request to $4 per hour. Hamilton and two other trustees still opposed the increase and voted against it; the Board of Trustees approved it by a margin of one vote. In her statement against the tuition hike, Hamilton said that the increase was unnecessary and irresponsible, referencing the college's $140 million cash reserve.In June, a few months after becoming chairwoman, Hamilton announced a plan to lower tuition by $5 per credit and reduce the local tax levy by 5 percent. She told reporters that the college tuition has risen 18 times in 20 years and is the highest of any community college in Illinois.
State grant
In May 2014, College of DuPage president Robert Breuder wrote a private email to the trustees in which he stated that they needed to come up with a reason to get a $20 million grant that the state had approved years earlier but had not yet disbursed to the college. Breuder wrote, "I needed to identify a project that would help release our state funding. My idea: a Teaching and Learning Center.... A building that focuses on teaching and learning is politically attractive; more so than let's say a student center, PE facility, etc." He also proposed a plan to apply political pressure to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn during Quinn's commencement address to graduating students. Breuder wrote in the email, "When I introduce Governor Quinn at commencement, I want to help our cause by thanking him for his commitment in front of 3,500 people. There are many voters in our district. Please keep November 4 in mind."In June 2014, the Board of Trustees approved a $50 million classroom construction project, which included the $20 million grant from the state, as part of a $500 million expansion program. Hamilton was the only trustee to vote no. She wrote letters to several newspapers to share her concerns.
The Daily Herald published Hamilton's letter on July 8, 2014. In the letter, Hamilton wrote, "Recently, the COD board voted on a $50 million building for new classrooms. I was the only board member that opposed that investment. I felt the project warranted further analysis and definition of scope in terms of funding.... The request for additional classroom space should have included a complete assessment of current and future needs."
At the next Board of Trustees meeting after the letter was published, board chairman Erin Birt chastised Hamilton. By September 2014, the college president's email became public after a government watchdog group called For The Good of Illinois, run by Adam Andrzejewski, filed a Freedom of Information Act request. In September, Andrzejewski published an article in Forbes magazine criticizing Breuder and Board of Trustees and praising Hamilton. Governor Quinn called the incident "extremely alarming" and canceled the grant.
Imprest fund
After Andrzejewski filed the FOIA, he learned that the college president's office ran a special fund called an "imprest fund." Payments made from the fund had been hidden from the trustees and the public. The fund was used to pay for some of Breuder's personal expenses, including $27,931 for membership dues at a private shooting club, along with money for satellite phones for a trip to Africa, where Breuder shot and killed an African elephant..In response to learning about the imprest fund, Hamilton successfully passed a transparency initiative that forces the college to publicly post on the Internet all payments made through the imprest fund.
Censure of Kathy Hamilton
In August 2014, the Board of Trustees formally censured Kathy Hamilton for inappropriate conduct. The censure stated that Hamilton publicly embarrassed board members; sent text messages from her phone during board meetings and refused to submit her text messages for public record; and that she had made inappropriate comments to board chairman Erin Birt at a public meeting.The censure included the following language:
- " publicly embarrassed her fellow elected board members and the college administration."
- " desire to communicate with the media, press and/or political publications rather than directly with the board has negatively affected the board and the college"
- "On multiple occasions, Trustee Hamilton has publicly stated that only she is looking out for the taxpayers, erroneously implying that the remaining six board members and college administrators are irresponsible and derelict in their duties."
Following the censure, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial that characterized the censure as "a teeny-bopper temper tantrum," criticized president Breuder and chairman Birt, and defended Hamilton's right to express her concerns to the media about her opposition to the classroom construction project. The editorial wrote, "Folks, this is called debate. Public bodies are supposed to have sharp, vigorous, full-throated debate. If COD officials want to secure state money again, they had better show they run a place that respects free speech, that tolerates dissent. In short, that they run a college."
College of DuPage Board Chairwoman
On April 7, 2015, a local election was held for three of the board’s six seats. Three candidates who campaigned under the banner “clean slate” won all three seats. Hamilton publicly supported all three candidates’ campaigns.After the election, Hamilton’s lawyer wrote a letter to the state attorney general and local prosecutor to ask for action to prevent the outgoing board from holding any meetings until the newly elected board members officially begin their tenure.
Hamilton was chosen as the new chairwoman of the board at the first board meeting after the election. The three returning board members were the only trustees to vote against Hamilton as chairwoman.
Robert Breuder firing
On April 20, 2015, Hamilton and her slate of newly elected trustees passed a vote to put college president Robert Breuder on administrative leave. His leave coincided with internal investigations being conducted by the board into various practices the school allegedly did in recent years. The board voted 4-1 to terminate Breuder's contract on October 20, citing evidence Breuder "participated in, oversaw or failed to prevent" various instances of "misconduct and mismanagement," and that he "engaged in conduct damaging to the reputation of the College."Breuder has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit seeking more than $2 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Waterleaf Restaurant
Hamilton and the board of trustees voted 5-1 on August 13, 2015, to close the Waterleaf Restaurant, an "upscale establishment that came to symbolize questionable spending by the school's embattled president." A The Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that Robert Breuder and school administration had spent nearly $190,000 at the restaurant on 500 occasions, "sometimes hosting community members but often meeting with each other over lunch, dinner or after-work drinks." The investigation also revealed that as of March 2015 the Waterleaf had lost nearly $2 million since opening.The Waterleaf has since reopened as a student-run facility, operated by the college's hospitality and culinary students under the supervision of faculty.
Tuition and Property Tax reductions
Under Hamilton's tenure, the board also approved a reduction in tuition costs of $5 per credit hour and reduced the school's property tax levy by about $4.2 million, or approximately 5 percent.WDCB fraud report
Hamilton helped to spearheaded the release of a report prepared for the Board of Trustees on whether Elmhurst College failed to properly notify the College of DuPage of previous criminal conduct of John Valenta, a part-time employee of the College of DuPage radio station, WDCB. Valenta was indicted on felony theft and forgery charges that he defrauded the school out of more than $443,000 over a seven-year period. He pled guilty in February 2017 and was subsequently sentenced to 8 years in prison. Valenta had previously been convicted in 2011 of submitting $11,000 in fake invoices to Elmhurst College.The report, prepared for the College of DuPage by Williams Montgomery and John, Ltd., indicated that while the station manager of WDCB may have been informed about the fraud at Elmhurst College, school administrators were kept in the dark about Valenta's history at the time of his hiring.
Upon release of the report, Hamilton remarked that "he public has paid for this report" and "t deserves to read it.... It describes an unfortunate chapter in COD history that this board will never allow to happen again."